Eric Swanson 
is Leadership Community Director for Externally Focused Churches and co-director of the Missional Renaissance Leadership Community for Leadership Network, which seeks to accelerate the impact of leaders by focusing on three big ideas: connecting, innovating, and multiplying. Previously he served with Campus Crusade for Christ for twenty-five years. Swanson has co-authored several books including To Transform a City: Whole Church, Whole Gospel, Whole City (2010) and The Externally Focused Quest: Becoming the Best Church for the Community (2010).
On his blog, he recently wrote “Nine Game-Changers for Global Missions,” which summarized the findings of a concept paper he wrote for Leadership Network by the same name. More specifically, he writes:
In previous times, global missions effectiveness was measured by the number of missionary pictures and the yarn that connected them to a foreign land. Programming was fairly simple—it was the outcome of sending people and resources and a decent plan to the foreign field. No more! The world has changed and that change should drive (or at least inform) how we do global missions. The nine game-changers are: Cities, Mutuality, Partnering, Investing in Leaders, Combining good news and good deeds, Focus, Financial Accountability, Business as Mission, and Technology.
So What?
Those interested in reading the full seventeen page concept paper may do so here (minimal registration is required to download the pdf). The paper was developed utilizing interviews with fifty “leading missional leaders engaged in global outreach.” Quick summaries of the nine game-changers follow:
- Cities. In roughly a century the percentage of the world’s population living in cities has increased from 8% to over 50%.
- Mutuality. Everyone can potentially play any (or every) role. No longer are there sending and receiving nations, but rather those in all nations are engaged in mutuality and reciprocity in doing mission work.
- Partnering. Enabled by the functional equality of mutuality, partnering is a more specific means of working together that enables strategic long term relationships between multiple entities.
- Investing in Leaders. Rather than thinking in terms of programming or sending outside leaders to become a part of a given community, greater attention is given to identifying and training key leaders within a given community.
- Combining good news and good deeds. Christian mission work is always about both why people serve and actually serving, never one in isolation from the other.
- Focus. Each group or specific effort has a clear understanding of its intended scope and does not seek to engage in work that clearly falls outside of that area of focus.
- Financial Accountability. Rather than funding efforts with the assumption money is spent wisely, investors (e.g. congregations) increasingly insist upon more detailed analysis of how the mission organization utilizes the funding.
- Business as Mission. Engaging in some sort of business can serve as a funding source for would be missionaries. This usually falls into three categories: Job Fakers (supported missionaries who pretend to work in some other role), Job Takers (those who take on legitimate positions), and Job Makers (those who go to create jobs for others via their business interests).
- Technology. Technology continues to evolve at a rapid rate and must be leveraged effectively as a tool in diverse ways including fundraising and education.
Take a few minutes to assess what this means for you and for your congregations.
- Consider your congregation’s global missions budget (financing global missions). How well does it (including an analysis of those organizations you provide funds to) reflect the nine trends?
- Consider your congregation’s global mission projects that involve teams for your church (doing global missions). How well do these efforts (including an analysis of those organizations you partner with) reflect the nine trends?
- Are there any of the nine trends you disagree with or believe may not accurately reflect the state of global missions in 2011? If so, which trend and why?
- Are there any trends you feel should be added to Swanson’s list? If so, what are they and why do you believe they belong here?